Chickens to power egg farm with poop

A South American egg producer is to turn chicken manure into electricity.

German firm Weltex Biopower is to build an anaerobic digestion plant for Colombia’s largest egg producer, Incubadora Santander.

The 800kW biogas plant will convert chicken manure and waste water into electricity that will help power the existing egg farm, which produces about 3.5 million eggs a day. The plant is forecast to be operational by early 2017.

The waste product created is a rich liquid fertiliser that can be introduced back into the agricultural cycle or sold.

Innovative and sustainable technologies such as anaerobic digestion are likely to help the Colombian government succeed in their green targets of increasing the renewable share in the power network to 6.5% by 2020.

The country’s total energy potential for biomass is estimated at 16GWh a year.